1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus in which an image pickup device constituted by a bare chip is mounted on a flexible substrate, and an electronic device that uses the image pickup apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image pickup apparatus in which an image pickup device constituted by a bare chip is mounted on a flexible substrate is already known as an image pickup apparatus that is favorably used in a comparatively small electronic device such as an electronic endoscope, a capsule endoscope or a digital camera.
As this kind of image pickup apparatus, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-173028 discloses technology in which a solid-state image pickup apparatus is constructed by: electrically connecting a solid-state image pickup device (image pickup device) constituted by a bare chip by means of an adhesive through a projecting electrode to a wiring pattern formed on one surface of a substrate having an opening portion that is opposed to a light receiving area of the image pickup device; attaching a translucent member to the other surface of the substrate so as to seal the opening portion; and attaching a sealing member having a concave portion that is capable of housing the solid-state image pickup device to the substrate from a rear face side of the solid-state image pickup device so as to surround and hermetically seal the solid-state image pickup device.
By adopting this configuration, the height of the image pickup apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-173028 can be lowered in comparison to an image pickup apparatus that employs a wire bonding method in which a terminal of a bare chip is intermetallically connected via a gold wire or the like to a ceramic substrate or the like. Furthermore, if various electronic components or the like belonging to the solid-state image pickup device are mounted on the flexible substrate, there is no necessity to separately add a dedicated substrate for mounting the various electronic components or the like, and consequently it is possible to further lower the height of the image pickup apparatus and reduce the size thereof. In addition, according to the technology disclosed in the aforementioned Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-173028, by adopting a flexible substrate as the substrate on which to mount the solid-state image pickup device, it is possible to secure a suitable degree of layout freedom when incorporating the image pickup apparatus into various electronic devices.